thoughts from my notes app

This is another post like one I wrote over a year ago called 12 thoughts. I basically go through my Notes app and find Notes that might interest you or I want to expand on. So here goes. 

001. I think I want to start a little podcast called The Chit Chat. It won’t be super long episodes for rambles. The longform content is what the blog is for but I think it would be cool to have recorded voice notes of little life lessons. Just a tiny thought through the audio waves.

002. These last few weeks I’ve been having the weirdest dreams. An old friend (who I don’t talk to) put a curse on me (that was weird). A guy I used to like keeps appearing. I was given 3 baby blue blankets. Is anyone else having these weird dreams and no way to make sense of them? Anyway, it got to the point where I was like reading the narrative of Joseph in Genesis to see if I could learn anything from his dream interpretation skills. But he’s just gifted.

Related Post: 12 thoughts: from pain to abundance

003. I wrote this thought on clarity about a decision I had and my dad had made a comment that made the decision a little bit easier for me. Hope you’re finding clarity for your life these days.

004. A few weeks back, I was listening to That Sounds Fun with Hilary Yancey and Tom + Melissa Tanner, and of course, as I do, I took notes. The Tanners were Annie’s mentors in college. The main lesson with the Tanners is not to stop praying. When we quit praying, we end up settling for less that God’s offered us. Hilary Yancey, author of Forgiving God, has some of the best writing I have read. She talked about meeting her husband Preston, their son Jackson, and how God speaks. I love when Annie said, “God is ready to be in relationship with every version of me.” It’s easy to forget that God cares about all of us, the good and the bad. He wants to be invited into everything we’re feeling.

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005. “Those who are full will be emptied and those who are emptied will be made full.” This line came to me one day. It reminds me of the Beatitudes. Some of us who are busy to the brim or just full of the world, we will eventually be emptied of the excess. And those of us who are walking through losses and feeling the weight of grief, we will eventually walk into joy again.

006. I was listening to a podcast episode with worship leader and songwriter Steffany Gretzinger. Her music sounds like what intimacy with the Lord is and I love that about her. In her interview, she talks about the names of her children: Wilder and Wonder. Which I absolutely love! She emphasized being satisfied in the Lord and really being submitted to him in leading worship. Can’t wait for her new album The Narrow Way to come out on July 7th!

007. What does friendship with God look like? It’s a question that’s come up for me because if that’s the kind of relationship I want to have with God, shouldn’t I know what that relationship looks like? My ideas of friendship with God include having conversations with no agenda, being willing to meet with him and lose track of time and then just sitting in silence. Getting comfortable with not needing to say anything because he knows what’s on my heart. 

Let me know what friendship with God looks like for you.

008. Another God thought. God is always present but there are times in which his presence is so tangible aka the manifest presence of God. I don’t have words for the manifest presence. I think I can only think of a few times that I’ve felt it, but my words in my notes app describe it as this: “other days I wonder if he’s settled in my womb because he knows how to give birth to things I can’t.”

Related Post: A year in review: post-grad lessons

009. I feel like the self-help world is all about improving yourself and that was some of what my early blogging was. I think part of me will always be pulled towards growth. I can’t help it, growing up in a family where there was always another thing to achieve. It has been a huge revelation for me to learn that I don’t actually need to grow beyond my feelings. What’s required is learning to sit with them, to befriend them, to listen to them tell me what I need to know about myself. Learning to sit with emotions instead of transcending them has been more insightful for me and has brought me to self-acceptance.

010. I’ve claimed to be a writer, even if it’s just of this blog and the journals I’m always trying to fill. I will share with you some poetry I wrote. I didn’t say it was good, but I’m glad I wrote it anyway.

011. My word for May was release. And a song that I fell in love with was Release by Ronnie Freeman. It’s about releasing our agenda for what God has for us. The last lyric of the song says I want everything you have for me. “I want everything you have for me” means releasing everything you wanted for yourself, to actually have empty and open hands to receive. Which brings me to my last note.

012. “I’m learning to receive instead of always expecting an explanation.” This was a reality a mentor reminded me of. I’m so quick to want answers, to find a story that makes sense that I forget to live. I forget that life’s not about answers. God isn’t a question to be solved but a mystery to enter into. A person to love. Receiving begins with acceptance, so I’ll start there.

Hope you enjoyed it, friends! What notes are you writing down these days?

Sincerely, 

Gigi